Ancient Egypt

Geography

Regions in Egypt:

• Nubia

• Upper Egypt

• Lower Egypt

• The Nile valley kemet

• The desert deshret

Environment

•965 km between Aswan and Cairo•Average annual rainfall 10 millimeters• Inundation

Nile at Aswan

1st cataract

Upper Egypt

Nile delta

Nile bank

Lower Egypt

Resources

•Agriculture•Domesticated animals• Stones and metals

Egyptian civilization lasted essentially unchanged for 3000 years.

The Egyptians are the most successful human culture in history.

Chronology•Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100-2686 BC) •Old Kingdom (c. 2686-2160 BC)• 1st Intermediate period (c. 2160-2055 BC)• Middle Kingdom (c. 2055-1650 BC)• 2nd Intermediate period (c. 1650-1550 BC)• New Kingdom (c. 1550-1069 BC)• 3rd Intermediate period (c. 1069-664 BC)• Late Period (664-332 BC)• Ptolemaic period

(332-30 BC)

The Palette of Narmer

Funerary Mask, Ptolemaic Period

Before the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone in 1822 by Jean Francois Champolion, we had only classical authors such as Herodotus (5th century BC) and Manetho (3rd century BC) from whom to reconstruct Egyptian history.

Chester Beatty PapyrusEbers Papyrus

Edwin Smith surgical papyrus

Written RecordsOf Egyptian Life

Scribes writing

Hieroglyphic Writing

•Ideograms (signs standing for ideas or concepts) •Phonograms (signs standing for sounds)

In addition to traditional Hieroglyphic writing, two alternate scripts also evolved:

HieraticDemotic

Pharaoh with Hathor (left) and Osiris (right)

Gods:• take many forms• have many names• can be combined• permeate all areas of human life

Gods are “conceptualizations of an abstract force” which is the divine.

The image of a god represents the essential, not the actual.

Ma’at = orderPersonified as a goddess

Egyptians had great interest in •cosmology (rules that govern the universe as a whole) and•cosmogony (the creation of the universe)

Society consists of four parts:

• gods• king• blessed dead• humanity

Egyptian World View

Ma’at

•a love of paired opposites,

dualities and groups• a love of symmetry•a desire to impose order• seeming inconsistency,

but insistence on continuity

Pomegranates Jar of roasted duck

Tomb of Kha, 18th dynasty

Bread

Linen robe from the tomb of Kha

Painting from tomb of Nebamun

More Scenes from Everyday Life

MetalworkersVeterinarians at work

Winnowing grain

Herding cattle

Concluding Thoughts (for now):

• Writing and art are sacred; so just about everything you can read or see means something.• Human life in Egypt is seen as part of a sacred whole.•Concepts of Ma’at (order) and Izfet (disorder) are

central.•The potential for disaster is always present and

it’s typically humans who cause problems.• The sun represents the potential for order and

continuity, and Osiris represents the potential for rebirth.

•Amun, the Sun, represents a culmination in Egyptian theological development.